Researchers glue tiny passive RFID microchips (as small as 1–3mg) onto the thorax of individual foragers. An antenna coil mounted at the hive entrance reads each chip's unique ID every time the bee crosses it, silently logging the exact moment a forager leaves and returns — without disturbing the colony. Over thousands of reads, this builds a precise timeline of each bee's foraging career: how many trips she makes, how long each trip lasts, and how her activity shifts across the day and her lifespan.
Long-running RFID studies have shown that individual foragers specialise: some bees consistently make many short trips to nearby flowers while others make fewer, longer trips to distant patches — a division of labour invisible without tagging every bee.
A hive entrance fitted with an RFID antenna reads the tag on every forager as she leaves and returns, timing individual trips and building a live chart of colony activity across a simulated day.
Each tagged bee's exit and return reads are matched to compute trip duration, exactly as real RFID hive-monitoring studies do — revealing daily activity rhythms and per-bee foraging patterns.
Adjust colony population, day speed and weather, then pick a bee ID to track. Watch her highlighted trail and trip log while the amber antenna ring flashes on every RFID read.
Real hive RFID systems can log tens of thousands of reads per day from a single entrance, letting researchers reconstruct the complete foraging career of every bee in a colony.